


A Good Turn

by WolfieOnAO3



Series: Before The Ides Of March [1]
Category: Raffles (TV 1977), Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Genre: (but it's all right we know they end up together EVENTUALLY...), Boarding School, Coming of Age, Friendship, Gen, Lots of conversations, M/M, Mild Angst, Pre-Canon, Raffles and Bunny at school, School, Some Fluff, Some Humor, Spoiler free!, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, Victorian school, Young Love, because the child truly is the father of the man!, bunny being a baby emotional catastrophe, raffles being a sweetheart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:35:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25514392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfieOnAO3/pseuds/WolfieOnAO3
Summary: 'There's a window just around the corner. When you hear my signal, I need you to drop out this rope,’ he said, pressing said rope into my hands as he explained, ‘just the same as usual, only in a different place. Nothing at all to worry about. Can you do that for me, do you think?’I nodded. ‘Just like usual. Nothing to worry about.’‘Good chap,’ Raffles grinned.When a plan of Raffles' goes awry, young Bunny has to think on his feet to save the night.A schooldays Bunny character study about friendship, hero-worship, and different types of love.Part 1 ofBefore The Ides Of March
Relationships: Bunny Manders & A. J. Raffles
Series: Before The Ides Of March [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2136807
Comments: 7
Kudos: 15





	1. Cricket's Rained Off For Christmas

‘No costume with you tonight, Raffles?’ I made so bold as to ask when the older boy appeared at the place and hour arranged. He was kitted out with his usual rope and soft shoes but not, as my question intimated, with the small bag which housed his usual late-night camouflage of loud checks and a fake beard.

‘Not tonight, m’boy,’ he replied in a good-natured whisper. Other boys would have cuffed me round the ear for asking impertinent questions, but Raffles never once raised a hand to me in the year I fagged for him; though there were certainly occasions I am sure that I’d deserved it. ‘As the night, the day, Bunny; tonight’s little _jaunt_ is to take place entirely within the school’s grounds, and so my best disguise is to stick as myself.’

‘You’re staying in the school?’

‘Yes,’ he answered, before hesitating and casting a quick glance over me. ‘Though not anywhere I ought to be. ...This one’ll be a bit on the risky side, Bunny, and I feel it’s only fair to tell you that up front. You’re still up for lending me a hand?’

‘Of course, if you need me.’

‘Good lad,’ said he, smiling as he ruffled my hair. Such a gesture would have earned any other boy my immediate ire, but it only buoyed my spirits when coming from him. ‘Come on, then. Follow me.’

Without another word, but with a clear glance fore and aft to check our coast was clear, Raffles stole away into the darkened halls beyond on near-silent feet, with me following in his wake and keeping my own much clumsier step at the very edges of the floorboards where they were less likely to creak. My toes scuffed the skirting as I went, so intent was I on following Raffles’ lessons in sneaking to the letter. So intent was I, in fact, that I had stopped paying my due attention to Raffles himself altogether, and had not noticed he had ceased moving forwards until I walked directly into the back of him. 

‘Steady on there, Bunny. You really must pay more attention,’ he murmured distractedly, and with only mild irritation. He reached back and pushed me gently away from him, keeping us both clear of the moonlight streaming in from a window across the way. ‘But good job on keeping quiet,’ he added, kindly. ‘We’ll make a shadow of you yet.’

‘But why have we stopp--’

I was cut off by Raffles hand promptly darting back once more, clamping over my mouth, and shoving me back further against the wall. As he did so, I saw a light from a candle pass by from beneath a closed doorway at the other end of the hall, accompanied by a soft padding of footsteps. I glanced between the far door and Raffles’ face -- the latter of which was only barely visible between the moonlight as it passed from cloud-cover to cloud-cover and the darkness to which my eyes had become accustomed. His expression was one of cat-like alertness, and he stood coiled as though ready to pounce at any moment; but his eyes were the true betrayers of his spirit, and they were alight with determination and bright with mischief. 

After the candle and the footsteps had faded from eye and ear, Raffles relinquished his grip on me and flashed me a quick smile through the darkness. ‘Sorry, Bunny,’ he said, though apology had been neither expected nor, indeed, required. ‘Don’t mean to be rough with you, my lad, but it’ll be more than both our hides are worth if we get caught at this.’

‘It’s all right, Raffles,’ I whispered back. ‘But where _are_ we going?’

He chuckled beneath his breath and shook his curly head. ‘All in good time,’ he replied. ‘Now, follow me -- quick and quiet, Bunny my boy, quick and quiet!’

And with that he was off once more, stealing through dark corridors and creeping up and down near pitch black stairways until I was quite disoriented, despite having been at the school for near enough two full terms. I had caught a glance of the east side of the quad through a window when I had dared look away from Raffles for a moment, so I knew we must be on the west side, and somewhere with the quad in view; or, at least, we had been when we’d passed that particular window. The thought unsettled me, as the west side of the building was nearer to the teacher’s private studies; a dangerous locale for pupils even in the dead of night -- _especially_ in the dead of night!

Eventually Raffles held up his hand to me once more, and this time I had the wherewithal to notice and to stop before colliding with him. 

‘Here we are, Bunny.’

‘Where is _here_?’

‘Phillipi!’ he said in a triumphant, mischievous whisper. ‘Come on; I need you to give me a boost up to that window up there, you see it? That little circular one? Don’t worry -- I’m not going through it. I just need a _look_ …’

It was with no small effort that I boosted Raffles up; not only did he have a good three and a half years on me, but his stature was naturally one of much greater height than mine, and I had always been small for my age. But he was light on his feet, and only needed me as a stepladder for but a moment before springing back down to the floor with a bright and wicked smile on his face. 

‘Just as I thought!’ he said, more to himself than to me. 

‘ _What_ Raffles?’ I asked, shivering in the darkness and growing a little petulant in my uncertainty. I was happy to assist him in his night-time misdemeanours -- more than happy, in fact; I was positively _elated_ to be trusted by the magnificent Captain of the Eleven, even if I was only trusted by virtue of being his assigned fag rather than for any of my own personal merits -- but letting down the rope from his dorm window was one thing, and this was _quite_ another. ‘Where _are_ we?’

‘Do you really not know? By Jove, Bunny, you’ve been here two terms already; do you still not know the layout of the school? Do you have any brains in that golden rabbit head of yours?’ He rapped his knuckles against my forehead as he spoke.

‘In the day I do,’ I retorted with more fire than I usually would dare use in talking to any older boy, let alone Raffles, ‘but at night it’s a much different matter -- that is, for knowing where I am, not having brains. It’s hard to follow you _and_ follow where I’m going all at the same time, is all. I’m not used to wandering about in the dark so much as you are, Raffles!’

Rather than showing anger at my cross tongue, as he really ought to have done for I was being unforgivably impudent, Raffles softened. ‘You’re quite right, Bunny, and I’m sorry for it. This really isn’t in your line at all, is it, my son? Look, I shan’t blame you if you want to run straight back off to bed and pretend you weren’t ever here. I’ll take you back m’self, if you really can’t figure out where you are.’

I shook my head resolutely, offended at the suggestion. ‘No, Raffles! I said I’d help, and I’ll help. I just don’t have my bearings, is all.'

Raffles clasped my shoulder with a strong hand. ‘You are a brick, Bunny! All right, I’ll give you the rundown, but we’ve got to be quick about it or it’ll be Hell to pay; so listen carefully. We are in the far corner of the West building, second floor, third corridor. You’re following?’

‘Above the theatre? And-- And above Mr Gray's private study?'

Raffles face lit up. ‘See! You do know your stuff, Bunny! Exactly that. So, if necessary, you’ll be able to figure out how to get back to your bed without me coming with you? Right, good lad. Now,’ he said, leaning in closer and dropping his voice even lower, ‘as for specifics… Well, you’re better off not knowing, truth be told, so you’ll just have to trust me to know what I’m doing and get on with it. But what I need _you_ to do is wait in that alcove around the corner at the far end of the hallway, all right? There is a window there, and when you hear my signal, I need you to drop out this rope,’ he said, pressing said rope into my hands as he explained, ‘just the same as usual, only in a different place. Nothing at all to worry about. Can you do that for me, do you think?’

I nodded. ‘Just like usual. Nothing to worry about.’

‘Good chap,’ he grinned, squeezing my shoulder before turning away from me and crouching down on his heels before the door nearest to us. He set about trying to unlock it with a series of different keys he had on a string about his neck.

‘How long do you think you’ll be gone?’ I asked, glancing around me at the cold, dark hallway. I was beginning to feel less sanguine about the prospect of being left here alone. The West building wasn’t a very welcoming place for pupils in the _day_. It was twenty times worse at night, when the moonlight and the trees sent shadows creeping along the walls like reaching, clawed hands; when pipes and old wood groaned and creaked like ghosts and ghouls and goblins through the floorboards; when the ever-present threat of _being caught out of bed_ loomed over me like the sword of Damocles… Suffice it to say that when I shivered it was not only from the draughts which nipped at my bare ankles. 

'I won't be too long if I can help it,’ Raffles replied over his shoulder. ‘But no more than fifteen minutes. You’ll be all right on your own until then?’

‘I’m not a _child,_ ’ I scowled. ‘I’m fourteen.’

Raffles laughed beneath his breath. ‘Quite right! Go on then, Bunny, hop along down to that window, and I’ll be with you in two shakes of a rabbit’s tail, if not sooner. Keep an open ear for my signal, and send down the rope as quickly as you can. ...And keep quiet, and stay hidden. There shouldn’t be any trouble at this hour, but you never know; and if there is, you keep well out of it, you hear?’

‘... _Will_ there be trouble, Raffles?’ I asked, trying to keep my voice from trembling.

‘Hope not!’ he said with a grin, and with that disappeared silently through the door he had unlocked and closed it behind him with barely a sound.

Wrapping my arms around myself and shuddering against the cold -- for I was dressed only in my pajamas and slippers -- I made my way down the dark hallway to the alcove at the end as Raffles had instructed.

Somewhere outside a branch was thumping with sporadic regularity against some wall or pipe or window, and making me flinch at every echoing _taptaptap_. I edged close to the window I would soon be helping Raffles climb up through, and looked out into the blackness beyond. I couldn’t quite make out the view. Or, rather, I felt I could for a second, but then it would mutate into a stage full of all manner of monsters, and so I stopped looking so hard. But I knew well enough what I would see had it been daylight. The West building backed onto vast swathes of open fields, with the Waterford woods bordering in one direction, and the Stockton road stretching out in the other. 

What Raffles was playing at over on this side of the school grounds I couldn’t fathom. His dormitory, on the floor directly below mine, was on the front side of the school, and in just the right place for easily sneaking unseen across to the town road after lights out. But back here all you could reach were fields, and the vegetable plots. I couldn’t see what Raffles would want with either of those. And what was the meaning of going out of one window, and coming back in through another; if indeed that was what he was planning to do? He’d had to _unlock_ that door to get through whatever unconventional exit was within -- and where he got those keys I couldn’t even begin to guess. So why go through the hassle of that at all, when this window was right here, and was in a decent enough place that he could climb back up into it? 

What Raffles’ intentions could be utterly eluded me, but speculating on his curious plans served as good a distraction as any from the cold and the dark and the creeping sense of uneasiness slinking into my bones as I stood, alone and vulnerable, in the deserted, ghostly hallway.

That was another thing making me feel uneasy. One of the older boys, aptly nicknamed Shocker, had told me and some of the other new boys that the West building was _haunted_ . Years and years ago, he’d said -- though he hadn’t specified _how many_ years ago -- there had been a fire in the theatre, down on the ground floor, and two boys and one teacher had gotten trapped by falling stage scenery, and burned to death right there in the orchestra pit. Jan “Bulldog” Tanner had told Shocker he was talking a lot of tosh, that there was no record of there ever being a fire at the school, and he was just trying to scare us. But Shocker had only nodded, and said _“that’s what they want you to think…”_

It was that part that had scared me the most, even more than the ghosts, which I didn’t _really_ believe in. But the idea that the schoolmasters could, if they so wished, cover up any suspicious deaths which would make the school look bad and cause trouble... Out here, so far from anything, who would know? I little trusted schoolmasters before, but ever since Shocker had put that thought into my head, I was even more wary of the stern-faced, ancient, looming figures who presided over near every area of our young lives.

It was with these thoughts churning in my head that Raffles’ pebbles suddenly bounced off of the window and nearly made me leap out of my skin. I fear I did in fact let out a squeaking sort of a yelp, but I quickly caught hold of my senses once more and heaved open the heavy window. I had already secured the rope to the leg of the table, conveniently situated beneath the sill, and it was but a matter of moments for me to toss the end of the rope out for Raffles to catch. I had just done so, and remained sitting on the tabletop in order to give it a bit more weight to support Raffles as he climbed, when I suddenly caught sight of a distant glimmer of candlelight, reflecting off of the white wall across the way.

Someone was at the other end of the hallway.

With my heart racing and my mind in tumult, before I even knew what I was about I had stuck my head out of the window and hissed ‘ _Stay there! Someone’s coming!’_ to Raffles, hoping he’d been near enough to hear, before pulling the window closed but for an inch.

Someone was at the other end of the hallway.

_Someone was at the other end of the hallway!_

I could hear footsteps, now, getting ever closer, and as I glanced about me, I realised I was utterly pinned down in that _damned_ alcove. There was absolutely nowhere for me to run, and nowhere for me to hide. Other than climbing out of the window after Raffles, which I was certain would end in me tumbling out and breaking my neck, I was as trapped as a rabbit in a sack.

And so I did the only other thing I could think of doing: I curled up on the table, and pretended to be asleep.

The footsteps came ever closer, and then stopped abruptly. I kept my eyes closed, my heart thumping in my ears.

‘Good _Lord!’_ cried the voice of House Master Hereford himself. ‘What on _earth_ is the meaning of this!’

‘It isn’t my turn to sit in the chimney… Cricket’s rained off for Christmas...’ I mumbled incoherently, feigning the talk of the disturbed dreamer and babbling whatever nonsense came into my head. Upon being then shaken by Mr Hereford, I scrunched up my face and groaned as though just awakened, blinking my eyes open and rubbing at them with a balled fist.‘Sir? What are you doing in the dormitory, sir? Is there a fire, sir?’

‘Dormitory? Dormitory? This is no dormitory! What on earth are you talking about, Manders!’ he snapped, leaning in closer and holding the candle in my face. ‘Are you _asleep,_ boy?’

I pushed myself to sit up, and looked around me with a confused frown, making sure to stay sitting on the rope and dangling my legs in front of where it was tied to the table. ‘I thought I was, sir, but-- Where am I? What’s going on?’

‘Manders, what is the _meaning_ of this?’ Mr Hereford barked back at me as our conversation continued in an endless volley of unanswered questions. He glared at me, the flickering shadows falling over his face making the man’s stern, angular countenance appear all the more terrifying to me, and making my poor heart race even faster in my chest.

I doubled down on my act. ‘...Sir? Where am I? What happened? Where’re my blankets? And-- and why-- why am I on a _table_ , sir? Is this a nightmare?’ 

Making my brow crumple and my voice break just enough to sound as though I were trying to keep from crying -- an easy feat in the circumstances -- I must have appeared quite the pathetic creature. For the first time in my life, though not the last, I felt thankful for my small size and childish face which made me seem all the younger and all the more entirely innocent of even the mere _thought_ of any wrongdoing. 

Mr Hereford sighed, and his voice took on a softer and entirely more sympathetic, though one wouldn’t go _quite_ so far as to say _fatherly,_ note.

‘...Manders, do you have a history of somnambulation in your family?’

I sniffled, less concerned with over- than under-acting my part. 'No. But I suppose my mother must have pushed me about in one when I was a baby…'

‘What? No...' The Housemaster shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Sleepwalking, Manders. Sleepwalking.’

‘Oh,’ I nodded, rubbing at my eyes again for good measure. ‘Yes. My father sometimes does. He ended up in the garden, once, in his nightshirt. He only realised when it started raining.’ This was only a half-untruth; my father had once gotten locked out of doors at midnight in the rain, but it was due to coming home later than he had anticipated and forgetting to write ahead to tell the servants to keep the front door unbolted. Nonetheless, I always preferred lies with a ring of truth about them; they always made me feel that much more confident, and that much less _wicked_.

‘...Come with me, Manders. Let’s get you back to bed.’

‘Yes sir. Sorry sir. I really am sorry sir, I don’t know what happened.’

Mr Hereford wasn’t a bad sort of man, strict, but fair, and, looking back, not without a sense of humour of his own. But at the time he was little more to me than the shadowy and serious figure who ruled over our House with a birch-cane fist.

‘Don’t concern yourself with it, Manders,’ he said, laying a kindly hand on my shoulder. ‘But perhaps we take some sort of precaution against this happening again, hm? We can see about having your dormitory door bolted on the inside with a light-bolt at night, if necessary. Does this happen often?’

‘Don’t think so, sir.’

‘Well. We shall have to keep an eye on it. We don’t want you walking out of any windows, do we?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Or wandering off into the town in your slippers?’

‘No sir.’

‘Or going off for a midnight swim in the lake!’

‘No, sir. I can’t swim, sir.’

‘Even more reason, then! Though you really should learn, you know. An activity for you over the Easter holiday, perhaps?’

‘Yes, sir. If you say so, sir.’

‘Cheer up, Manders! No harm done. And you aren’t in any trouble for this, you understand? My younger brother used to sleepwalk, when we were children. I quite understand.’

‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.’

We walked the rest of the way back to my dormitory in silence, and with every step I took, I prayed to any and all Gods who would listen that Raffles could find his way back inside safely.


	2. Carpent Tua Poma Nepotes, or something

The next morning I awoke early, despite my late-night’s excursions -- _because_ of them! I was practically hopping on my feet with anxiety by seven-thirty, and desperate to dash off and find Raffles; it took all of my energy to sit still and act normal so as not to belie that anything out of the ordinary had occurred the night before. And so I sat, dressed and ready on the edge of my bed, a good half hour earlier than usual. I was hoping that the praepostor would be in soon with impromptu orders for those of us who served as fags, and who weren't already scheduled on the morning rosters, as I was not that week -- and, indeed, rarely was, as Raffles even then kept irregular hours for a schoolboy, as far as he was able. He disliked the routine of a fag arriving at the same time each morning and evening, preferring to send for me if and when he wanted me. It was upon that eventuality I was waiting that morning. If Raffles had made it back, surely he would send for me, and I should be put out of my misery before long? The hope of that was my only light in the fog of my discontent.

‘Psst! Harry! Are you awake?’ The friendly brown face of Dodo Rosering peeked around the edge of my partition. ‘You are! I thought you were up, old boy,’ he chirped happily. ‘Not like you!’

‘Hullo, Dodo,’ I said, trying not to sound too sullen. Dodo was always an early riser. He liked to sit in bed and read novels before starting the day -- mostly because the type of adventure novels he preferred were of the sort strictly prohibited by the headmaster and he’d get in all sorts of trouble if he were caught reading them. For my part, I preferred usually to stay asleep until the last possible minute.

‘I say,’ he said, coming into my partition and sitting next to me on my bed, uninvited though not unwelcome, ‘what happened last night, then?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, don’t fool with me, Harry, I thought we were friends? Old Hereford coming in at gone midnight with you in hand, of course! What went on? Did you try to run away again, old boy?’

‘I never tried to _run away_ , Dodo,’ I protested, in vain. Schoolboy gossip can be every bit as pernicious as that of old men.

‘What, then?’

‘Why were _you_ awake, Dodo? You’re usually the first of us to be asleep!’

‘My uncle Ted sent me a new Bret Harte book,’ Dodo grinned, ‘and I just couldn’t put it down until I found out what happened to old Kentuck and the little baby… I can just about read under the blankets using that luminous paint I stuck on the back of my pocket watch. Devil on the eyes, but I’ve got to wear bottle-tops anyway, so dash it, I say! -- But do stop trying to change the topic, old man,’ he cut back in on himself, as though I had been the one talking about novels which would get a chap ten stripes if he were caught with them, not him. ‘What was old Hereford doing carting you back to bed at three in the morning?’

‘It wasn’t _three,_ Dodo.’

‘So you don’t deny he did, then?’

I sighed. ‘Look, don’t go telling any of the other boys, all right?’

‘Honour bright!’ Dodo said, quite seriously, and I believed him. I didn’t have too many friends at school, but Dodo was the best of them, and I couldn’t have wished for better. If Dodo promised not to tell, he wouldn’t.

‘Well…’ I began, fiddling with my shirt cuff. ‘Well, you see, the truth is... I was _somnambulating_.’

‘Like those ladies in the _Illustrated Police News?’_

‘I suppose so. Except I didn’t go out on the roof, or into the ocean, or anything exciting like that. I just wandered around the corridors for a bit and fell asleep on a table. ...All the way over in the West building, though.’

‘What a wandering cat!’ Dodo giggled. ‘Oh, you are a card, Harry! What, and I suppose old Hereford found you, did he, whilst on his midnight rounds?’

‘I suppose he must have done.’

‘Was he jolly cross with you? Are you in awful trouble? Are you going to have to go up to see old Thracken?’

‘No. Why should I be in trouble? I can’t help it if I sleepwalk. It’s not _illegal_ to sleepwalk, Dodo,’ I answered indignantly. I had almost convinced myself that this _was_ the true story, and was feeling quite offended that my imaginary condition was being viewed so unempathetically. ‘I was _asleep_. I can’t help what happens any more than you can control what you dream about.’

‘My uncle Ted says that _he_ can control his dreams. He read a book by, um, the Marquess of Saint Dennis, or somebody, that teaches you how to do it.’

‘Your uncle Ted _also_ said that he had a pet tiger...’

‘He might have done. He lived in America for three years!’

‘They don’t have tigers in America, Dodo.’

‘They might! They have them in London!'

'In the _Zoo…'_

At this point the praepostor in charge of our building stuck his head through the main door to our little dormitory, and I stopped listening to Dodo and his protests about his uncle Ted, and instead began listening impatiently for word from Raffles.

‘Right, lads! Everyone who isn’t awake, _wake up!_ Fags: Gissing, Sprawket wants you down in his study to sharpen his pencils before chapel. Jerome, Cecils wants a word with you about your sub-par dusting. Rosering, Hopkins wants the Latin comp you were supposed to take down to him _last night_ \-- post haste! The rest of you, _do not be late for breakfast!_ I am sick to death of the tardiness of this dormitory, it’s making us all look bad and I _will -- not -- stand -- for it!_ ’

I darted out of my partition before praepostor Nabbingdon could get away.

‘Sorry, Nabbingdon, but was there any orders for me? From Raffles?’

‘ _Were_ there any orders, Manders, not “ _was”._ Speak properly, for heaven’s sake--! I thought you were supposed to be good at English composition, not an utter dunce. Honestly, the standards in this dormitory…’

‘Please,’ I persisted, ignoring the insults to which I had already become half-habituated, ‘are you certain there isn’t anything for me? No orders from Raffles at all?’

‘...Do you think me incapable of accurately relaying messages, Manders?’

‘No, but--’

‘If there were orders from Raffles, don’t you think I would have given them to you? Good God, you really are as _stupid_ as you look, aren’t you, Manders? -- Manders, I asked you a question! Please be so good as to answer me!’

‘Yes,’ I mumbled.

‘Yes, what?’

‘Yes, I’m as stupid as I look! But-- but have you _seen_ Raffles this morning? At all? I-- Maybe he just didn’t catch you, and maybe he is looking for me, or...’ I trailed off, feeling my cheeks begin to burn beneath Nabbingdon’s’ condescending eye.

The praepostor sneered and shook his head. ‘You want to watch yourself, Manders. You’re turning into more of a lovesick puppy with each passing day. You’ll get yourself a bad reputation, if you keep that up!’ 

And with that he gave me a swift cuff to the side of the head for talking back, and left to wake up the other rooms on the floor.

I went through breakfast and chapel with a heavy heart, and with a sharp eye on the look-out for ink-black curls, and a sharp ear listening for that bright laugh and sardonic, charismatic timbre I knew so well. But I saw nor heard hide nor hair of Raffles all morning. And as it was the last Friday before we were to go home for the long Easter break, we had been given a half holiday. Usually this was something to be greeted with cheers, but today, for me, it only meant that I did not even have classes in the afternoon to distract me from my tangling, gnawing thoughts. What might have befallen the wonderful Captain of the Eleven? What might have befallen him all because of _me!_

I was milling about the studies on the ground floor in the middle of the afternoon, near enough to my own little room to justify my being there, but close enough to the stairs that I couldn’t miss Raffles if he headed up to the second floor to his own. I was just beginning to run over the events of the previous night for the hundredth time in my mind, when a shimmery sort of voice from the further end of the corridor interrupted my nervous thoughts.

‘Manders! Bunny Manders! Over here, little thing!'

‘Yes?’ I said, whipping my head around and spotting Christopher “Kitty” Hopkins, a gilded, beautiful, artistic sort of a youth of the Upper Sixth, who had won national prizes for his portrait compositions and was already making a minor name for himself in the art world, waving me over to him. My friend Dodo -- his fag -- was grinning at me from his side. Hopkins was in the same high set as Raffles, though Dodo told me in confidence that the only reason Kitty had been able to remain there was that Raffles had been helping him with his Latin, Greek, _and_ mathematics for the past two years, otherwise he should have been dropped down a set, _or two._

‘Yes?' I answered him as I made my way over. 'I'm here! What is it, Hopkins?’

'Oh, terribly sorry to bother you, Bunny, but I've just seen Raffles heading down to the footpath by the river, and he asked me to catch you and send you down into the town for him. He has some packages, or something, that he needs you to carry back for him -- or, I think that was what he said… Oh, and that you are to go by the river path, not the road. Which I say is a deliciously good plan. It does take about a thousand times as long to get there, but it is _so_ much prettier than the road at the moment, and ever so much quieter, though it is rather harder on one’s shoes… But there are some really marvellous little spots along that path, now that the flowers are blossoming, I really ought to take my pencils down there, and--' 

The boy blinked, and frowned, realising he had wandered off track. I was fairly buzzing in eagerness for him to shut up and let me leave, but nonetheless waited obediently until being dismissed. 

Raffles wasn't killed! Raffles was alive! Raffles was _waiting for me!_

'Sorry, what was I saying? Oh, yes, Raffles and his mysterious packages. I offered him use of little Dodo and myself to help him back with his things instead, as we are heading into town a little later, aren't we, Dodo? But he really was rather insistent on me sending _you_. I did tell him not to trouble you, as I would have been quite willing to help, and everyone is so busy what with the end of term, but you know what Arthur is like when he sets his mind to something. He is as stubborn as the proverbial _ox_. He really is _too_ incorrigible. But I suppose that's just Raffles for you, isn’t it? And I can hardly criticise a fellow for his queer little quirks, eh, what?' Hopkins said with a silvery laugh. 'Especially not dear, darling old Raffles. ...What was I saying? Oh, yes! Off to town with you, little Bunny Manders. Quick on your paws now, hop, hop, hop! Don't keep the darling chap waiting, or he'll get in one of his moods; you know what he's like. Then I shall have to spend all the evening cheering him back up again. Not that I should mind that at all, but better the fellow never gets down to need cheering, wouldn't you say? _Carpent tua poma nepotes…_ Er, or something like that, anyway.'

I couldn’t keep the smile from my face, nor the impatience from my fidgeting feet as the kindly, if overly loquacious, Hopkins finally dismissed me.

‘Oh, yes, of course! Thank you for telling me, Hopkins!' I replied, already halfway out the door. ‘I’ll-- I’ll get down there right away! Thank you!’

'Yes, yes, run along, Raffles' little rabbit. Run along!'

And with no further encouragement required, off I dashed.

I walked as briskly as I could through the school grounds, where running was prohibited, but the moment I was out onto the open road I sallied forth in as fast a sprint as I could muster in the direction of the small town around which our school was built. I was never a particularly able sportsman, and so my sprint was barely faster than most boys' jogs, but I was still making quick enough pace to necessitate a skidding halt when Raffles unexpectedly stepped out of the shadow of the hedgerow and called to me before I almost ran past him.

‘Raffles!’ I cried, quite involuntarily as I scrambled to regain my balance on the rocky track and darted back in his direction, out of breath. ‘I was sure -- you were -- dead! Or caught, or expelled, or--’ 

‘Steady on, Bunny! Not so loud, by Jove! And catch your breath before speaking -- I don’t want you choking to death on me, my boy. Why were you running like that, anyway? I told Kitty to say it wasn’t urgent. I suppose he left that part out, and told you everything else under the sun? That boy is _incorrigible_ ,’ Raffles laughed, though affectionately, as he echoed Hopkins' own words about him. 

I knew that he and Hopkins were intimate friends, even if the blonde boy, with his whimsical ways, drove Raffles to distraction on occasion. I had been lucky enough to have spent a small handful of perfectly wonderful evenings alongside Dodo in the roomy Upper Sixth studies belonging to one or the other of them, the two of us younger boys cribbing the older boys’ compositions together whilst they sat and chatted and offered us the odd biscuit for our troubles; which to us, loyal as we were, were really no troubles at all.

I shook my head as Raffles chattered at me, struggling to catch my breath more now that I had stopped than whilst I had been going at it full sails. ‘I -- wanted -- to,’ I panted, ‘see that -- you were -- all right!’

‘Couldn’t you infer that from my message?’ he asked, though with a friendly chuckle rather than with any serious derision. ‘If I ever need to make contact from beyond the grave, Bunny, I'll choose a less scatter-brained spiritualist than dear Kitty Hopkins to relay my messages! Not that I don’t appreciate your concern,’ he added, with a kind smile.

‘Well, yes, that is to say I did gather, but-- Oh, but I was awful worried for you, Raffles. I hardly slept a wink. I’ve been worrying all day!’

‘What a chap you are! I'd have hoped you’d have a little more faith in my ability to get out of scrapes, by now!’

‘It was an awful tight spot you were in Raffles. Tighter than any you’ve been in before!’

‘Not quite,’ he laughed, shaking his curly head. ‘But it wasn’t a great position for a chap to find himself in, hanging out of a window where he _really_ shouldn’t be, and with the House Master less than a yard or two away... Yes, I suppose it was quite a tight spot, Bunny. But far less tight thanks to _you_! I really would have been in a great deal more trouble, and would have been set to the crease against much higher odds, had you not been such a good wicket-keeper, my sleep-walking rabbit!’

I widened my eyes at his final words, and had my face not already been glowing from running, I felt certain I’d have turned bright pink with embarrassment. ‘...You heard all of that, did you?’

‘Every clever word of it, Bunny,’ Raffles replied, beaming down at me with such a dazzling smile it seemed to me then to outshine even the sun in the heavens. 

‘Damn.’

‘Watch your language! Good Lord, a tyke saves your skin a few times, and the next thing you know he’s swearing as wantonly as the Queen's Soldiers! Don’t let old Hereford hear you at that, Bunny. Or me, for that matter! The youth of today…’ Raffles tutted at me, shaking his head with a frown. But the playful sparkle in his eyes had me beaming, and he grinned back down at me in turn.

‘Come on,’ said he, extending his arm to me in an unprecedented gesture which did little to steady my racing heart. 'I think you’ve got your wind back now, my lad, enough to walk with me into town. I rather fancy some cocoa, don’t you? And after that deuced good turn you did me, I think a hefty slice of cake should be on the menu too -- my treat! You really came through for me last night, Bunny. Saved the side, and no question!’

We took off down the track at a steady, ambling pace, and in silence; me hanging onto Raffles’ arm and the complimentary words he had said to me alike, and as deep in thought as ever I had been -- and as happy! Raffles was perfectly safe; and better yet, Raffles was perfectly safe _thanks to me!_ I was so used to being told by the older boys, and the schoolmasters, and even some of the pluckier _younger_ boys, that I was stupid, and useless, and hopeless, and all manner of other unencouraging epithets. But Raffles -- _Raffles_ ! -- called me _clever!_ Called me his _wicket-keeper!_ He’d said _I_ had saved the side! And there I had been, worrying night and day that I’d sent the boy to his death--! Or, at least, to his expulsion, in any event. 

The walk from the school grounds to the town via the river-path was always a pleasant one, and never more pleasant than in mid-Spring. And, too, would and could never be more pleasant than it was to me on that particular day, lighted as my little world was with relief, and companionship, and the sense of having done a good chap a good turn.

The sun was just beginning it’s downwards dive into a watery blue sky, scattered with white, fluffy clouds which improved rather than marred it’s face. The grass verges beside the stony footpaths were littered with bluebells and snowdrops and early-rising daffodils; welcome flashes of crisp, vibrant colour after a winter blanketed with white. The hedgerows were alive with birdsong, and beyond them the river burbled along in it's own quiet fashion. The cool breeze as it jostled my hair carried with it the scent of new grass, and damp earth, and fresh blossoms, and _joy_. 

My beginnings at that school had seemed to me at the time to have been cast beneath ill-fated stars and heralded by the fall of a sparrow. I had certainly believed in those first few weeks that the next five years of my life would be little more than an endless cycle of torment and despair. Yet, if I could have shown to my younger self -- younger only, of course, by a few handfuls of months, but when one is newly fourteen, seven months can make all the difference in the world-- the view of that bright Friday afternoon, walking to town arm in arm with Raffles, I would have felt far more up to defying augury.

After a while of our walking in silence, I noticed Raffles’ curious and piercing gaze falling upon me, and I looked up to meet it.

‘You’ve come on a long way from September, Bunny,’ Raffles said, in what I thought were proud tones. ‘You were such a scared little thing when you tumbled into the halls that first day, and look at you now. You would barely even look me in the eye the first few weeks I knew you, and you trembled every time a school master so much as walked by you.’

‘I wasn’t all _that_ bad, Raffles,’ I retorted -- and truly I hadn’t been. Not _quite_ . ‘You exaggerate something _awful_.’

‘And _that_ , my little lad, is exactly what I am talking about,’ he laughed. ‘Talking back at me like that, impudent as you like!’

‘...Sorry,’ I said, with an unapologetic shrug and just a little Raffles-ish swagger, glowing inside when my risky joke elicited another laugh from the older boy.

‘Yes,’ he said after another few moments of silence, as though responding to a question he himself alone had heard. ‘Yes, I think you’ll be all right, Bunny. You’re the right sort of chap; and you’ve got pluck. And next year you won’t have to fag for anyone, up in the Lower Fifth. You’ll have much more free time.’

‘I don’t mind fagging, so long as it’s for _you_ , Raffles. I rather like it, in fact.’

‘How is your cricket coming along?' Raffles asked, changing the subject. ‘I've been too busy with the First XI to oversee any of the younger boys' training sessions this season; though I hope to during Trinity. Is it going well for you?'

 **'** Not really,’ I admitted. 'I can't bowl, I can hardly bat, and I'm not even a very good fielder because I'm so slow. And...' I hesitated, but Raffles' interested, kindly expression spurred me on. 'Well, the other boys all make fun of me. I'm used to _that_ , but when it comes to cricket they are _right_. I'm terrible. I try my absolute hardest, as much as the teachers claim I don't, but I never get any better. And I hop every time I bowl.'

' _Hop_?'

I nodded but offered no further elaboration on the point. 'I am useless at cricket, Raffles. Well, at all sports, really, but I don't care about those half so much as I do cricket. I'll never be any good.'

‘Oh, we’ll see about that, Bunny! What do you say to me giving you a few lessons, next term? We’ll see if I can’t get you up to scratch in time for the Trinity games. You can bring your friend Dodo along, too, if you like. Kitty tells me Dodo hardly ever stops talking about cricket whilst he cleans and dusts and mills about; it's giving poor Kit quite the headache, but of course he’s far too soft to say anything to the lad,’ Raffles added with an affectionate chuckle. ‘Poor Kitty, between me and Dodo I don’t doubt he has heard more about cricket this year than he’d wanted to hear in a lifetime!’

‘Dodo really does love cricket. I think it’s just about the only thing he loves as much as his cowboy books, but his asthma is devilish bad so I doubt he’ll ever make even the third eleven -- though he's still not so much of a duffer as I am. And I bet he knows more about it than any other boy in our form, maybe even the whole _school._ He’s never without his _Wisden_ , and has practically memorised his _Lillywhite!_ ’

‘Is that so?’ Raffles said with a smile.

‘Oh, yes,' I nodded. 'His uncle Ted took him down to Lords two summers past, and he said that ever since then he’s been _bitten by the bug._ Have you been to Lords, Raffles?’

‘A few times. Not too many. Have you?’

‘Oh, no, not yet. I’m hoping I might get to go down over the summer holidays, though; my father said if I get good reports this year he might take me. If I’m good. But really I’m looking more forward to seeing _you_ play, Raffles, next term. All the other boys say you’re just tops! A real all-rounder!’

‘My batting still leaves too much to be desired to say _that_ ,’ said he with humility, ‘but I’m hoping to straighten out a few of the kinks in my method, this season, ready for try-outs up at Oxford. ...Gods willing I don’t lose my place before then,’ he added with a cryptic mutter.

My little heart sank at the reminder that Raffles and I would have only one more term together. The boy who had been so kind to me, and who had ensured that a school which had promised to be a nightmare turned into something more approaching a dream, would be leaving in only three and a half short months, to go off to University and never return.

‘Oh. Yes. I’d forgotten about that.’ 

‘Don’t look so down in the mouth about it, Bunny!’ Raffles cried, shaking my arm. ‘A chap can’t stay at school forever! You’ll be off out into the world before you know it, too. _Enjoy_ it, my boy -- it'll be past and gone all too quickly, and you’ll be wishing it wasn’t; at least until you press on to your next adventure!'

‘Aren't you going to miss it here, Raffles? Not even a little bit?’

I never got my answer, as we turned the last corner just the moment I asked. We came out onto the lower end of the main street of the little town which now existed primarily to service the school. The pavements that afternoon were thronging with boys, arm in arm, laughing and talking, sharing sweets from sticky paper bags and generally revelling in the tired sort of excitement which always heralds the end of a term.

‘Come along with me, Bunny! No, not that way, m’boy, we shan’t go to Holywell’s. Let’s go to Eulalie’s. It’s the end of term, after all, and their coffee is _infinitely_ superior!’

‘And expensive!’ I chirped, letting Raffles drag me across the street, nearly getting us mown down by a dogcart. 

‘Don’t worry yourself about that, Bunny; I’m paying. Call it thanks for your quick thinking last night, and for all of your late nights waiting up for me at the window this term and last. And you're as my guest and my friend, not as my fag, not this afternoon. All right?’ Raffles spoke flippantly, paying more attention to dodging our fellow pedestrians than to me, or to the words he was saying which filled my heart, so attention-starved and eager for praise as it was, full to brimming.

‘Are you sure?’ I asked, half-jogging to keep up with him.

‘What was that?’

‘I asked if you were sure?’

‘Sure about what?’

‘Oh… Nothing.’

‘Am I sure about nothing? Bit of a philosophical conundrum to spring on a chap on a sunny Friday afternoon!’ Raffles joked as he bounded around a corner, pulling me with him. He was suddenly full of the silly good-spirit I had on occasion watched in him from across the common room as he played around with his peers, unaware of my admiration from afar. It was far more contagious up close.

We reached Eulalie’s a few minutes later; a small, select, and, as I’d rightly pointed out, _expensive_ confectioner’s shop situated just off of the main street, and offering stunning views over the dropping hillside landscape from the back verandah where we sat. Raffles ordered a coffee for himself, and laughed when I unwisely tried to follow suit, getting me a cocoa instead; but he did order me a serving of coffee flavoured ice cream to make up for it, which I no doubt enjoyed far more than I would have a bitter mug of the stuff.

Just as I was finishing up my ice cream, quite out of the blue Raffles leaned forwards on his elbows and asked me a serious question. The change in tone wrongfooted me, coming as it did straight after a conversation about which of Shakespeare’s comedies was the most fun; my vote was on _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ , but Raffles just kept teasingly trying to argue for _Hamlet._ In his defense, his increasingly elaborate arguments did make me laugh a lot more than even Bottom ever had _,_ and he’d half convinced me of his case by the end. 

‘You aren’t going to ask me what I was up to last night then, Bunny?’ he asked unexpectedly, pinning me with an heuristic blue eye.

I shifted in my seat, suddenly feeling the atmosphere which had been so amiable and relaxed for that wonderful half-hour shifting back into that of the superior elder boy and his fag. 

‘I’m not,’ I replied, sounding more resolute than I felt.

Raffles tilted his head. ‘You aren’t at all curious?’

‘No.’

‘Little boys who lie get eaten by wolves!’ he said, with a playful smirk which sailed right past me in my growing nervousness about where this discussion was headed.

‘Well, I’ll be all right then, because I’m not a _little boy_ ,’ I protested with more spirit than respect, and deeply resenting, for reasons I didn’t quite yet fully understand, that he insisted on still talking about me as though I were a child.

‘But you are lying,’ Raffles persisted.

‘Well, yes, a bit,’ I admitted.

‘And yet you still don’t ask me.’ 

The tone of his voice, as opposed to his words, intimated that this was a statement, rather than a question; an expression of interest, rather than a demand for explanation. Nevertheless I couldn’t help but treat it as such. I felt there had to be some ulterior criticism lurking beneath Raffles words, and I was desperate to set him straight on my motives, and to put from his mind any poor opinions of me he may have been carrying in his heart.

‘Yes, but-- But, well, it’s just that-- that is to say…’ As I stumbled over myself, Raffles watched me without comment through a patient blue eye. ‘That first night you trusted me to help you--’ I glanced around us and lowered my voice, ‘--help you getting out and back in, well-- Well, you told me to keep quiet and to not ask any questions about what you were doing. And I promised I _would_ keep quiet, and that I _wouldn’t_ ask questions, no matter what. And, well, I’ve not always been awful good at being all as quiet as you are, but I can keep the other promise as well as any other boy might, and I mean to.'

‘Better than any other boy might, I’d say,’ he murmured, half to himself, before fixing me with a sharp look. ‘And you still intend to keep that promise, I suppose?’

‘Of course!’

‘Even though you _are_ curious?’

I nodded again, with emphasis. ‘I’d never go back on my word, especially not to a friend -- and especially not to _you_. Breaking a promise is about the lowest thing a person can do, if you ask me.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Raffles chuckled. ‘But you’re quite right to stick to your word. It speaks well of you, Bunny; especially for such a little lad of your age -- Sorry! Not _little_! Accept my apologies, Mr Manders, sir,’ he said with a ridiculous bow, and I giggled.

‘Well,’ he continued, ‘if we are being honest with one another, then just so you know, I took that promise from you for your own benefit, Bunny, not for mine. If I’m ever caught out, may all the Gods forbid, and _you_ are questioned about me, you can honestly swear that you know nothing about it. Then you’ll have a clean conscience, and I won’t have to feel guilty for making you lie.’ He hesitated. ‘... Well, or risk you cracking and dropping me in it, of course,’ he added a little shamefacedly.

‘I never would!’ I cried. ‘I’d never sneak on you, Raffles, no matter what! And I’d swear to knowing nothing even if I knew _everything_!’

He looked over at me then with a curious expression I could not quite parse. ‘You’re a nice chap, Bunny,’ he said. ‘And I rather believe you.’

‘...Are you going to tell me what you were doing, then?’

Raffles threw back his head in laughter at that, causing a few other patrons of the cafe to glance over at us with chastising headshakes. 

‘No, Bunny,’ he said as his laughter finally subsided, and he wiped a tear from his eye, ‘I’m not.’

‘Oh.’

‘Come on,’ he said, suddenly pushing himself up from the table. ‘I’ve got a new cricket bat to pick up, and want to buy a few books for the holidays. You can help me carry them back to school.’


	3. Benevolent Spirits

Raffles and I were on our way back to school, once more via the riverway path as Raffles said he was in no rush, with a bag of books each in our hands, and me with Raffles’ new cricket bat slung over my shoulder. It was no later than five o’clock in the afternoon when we left the town. The day was still bright and the temperature still warm as we ambled companionably down the track, talking of Dante and Christina Rossetti; I being educated on the former's art; he indulging my childish lectures on the latter's poetry, though he knew as many by heart I did.

We were about halfway back when a voice calling out from behind us bade us to halt in our tracks.

‘Hoy, Raffles, hold up a little, won’t you, dear?’

Raffles' face lit up at the sound of Hopkins’ voice, and he turned with a bright and beaming smile to greet his friend; he was greeted with an equally bright smile in return.

'Hello, Kitty,' Raffles said warmly, before nodding courteously to Dodo who was trailing happily alongside Hopkins. 'And good afternoon, young Mr Rosering,' he said, making Dodo grin as only Raffles could make people grin.

'I say, is that all you had to bring back with you?' Hopkins asked, nodding at the cricket bat and the few books Raffles and I were carrying between us. 'Gosh, Raffles, I rather think you could have managed that by yourself, lazy beggar. ...Or I could have helped you,’ he added in a slightly hurt tone of voice. ‘We could have gone down together, old boy.'

Still smiling, Raffles linked arms with Hopkins and laughed. 'Yes, I think I rather over-estimated how much I had to get,' he answered quite loudly, before dropping his voice and murmuring something to Hopkins that I couldn't quite catch, but which prompted the boy to glance at me, nod, and then cover Raffles' hand, resting in the crook of Hopkins' elbow, with his own. I might have been able to catch what he’d said, had Dodo not begun wagging away in my ear, which made overhearing difficult. Not that I was trying to overhear.

'Did you hear, Harry, that Mr Gray has assigned work for some of the boys in his first sets to do all across the Easter vacation? Even in the Upper Sixths! Kitty told me; him and Raffles are among the unlucky few. Latin _and_ Maths. Pages and pages of the stuff. Isn't that just _beastly_?'

I nodded, distantly, still trying to keep half an eye on Raffles and Hopkins as they slowed their step and fell back a little way behind us. Seeing the pair of them together had begun lately to send a peculiar and novel sort of pang twinging through my chest. It was most unpleasant, and quite confusing, and yet I couldn't help but watch them anyway, at every chance I got. 

'Oh, yes,' I replied to my friend. 'I suppose it is rather unfair. But why do you care, Dodo? Neither of us are anywhere near Gravedigger Gray's first sets, that’s far too high for the likes of _us_.’

'It's the _principle_ of the thing, Harry!' he retorted indignantly in a voice not quite his own, as meanwhile Raffles quietly slipped his arm around Hopkins' waist, beneath his blazer so as not to be easily noticeable by anyone coming up the path from behind. 'If Gray can get away with that now, who _knows_ what might come next! Isn't that right, Kitty?' Dodo added, calling back over his shoulder.

'What was that, Dodo?' Hopkins replied, utterly unselfconscious about the fact Raffles had his hand on his hip. I felt myself blushing on his behalf.

'About old Gravedigger setting you work over the Easter holidays. I'm trying to explain to Harry how it _sets a bad precedent!_ '

Hopkins' usually placid face lit up with righteous indignation, and I noted with interest how Raffles' gaze flickered approvingly over the boy as he began enthusiastically denouncing both the practical act and the theoretical concept of setting boys work to do over their allotted rest periods, and then launching into criticising the study of Latin and advanced mathematics in general, and Mr Gray's teaching methods in particular. Dodo and I fell back in step with the older boys as we listened.

'It's all well and good for you to laugh about it, Arthur,' Hopkins said once the main bulk of his diatribe had petered out and Raffles was left chuckling beneath his breath, ' _you_ can write Latin verses in your _sleep_!'

'Hardly! And I am as morally against the thing as you are, Kitty, don't mistake me. You forget how weak I am at Trig'.'

'Yes; as weak as you are at anything else, which is not at all by everyone else’s standards! And nowhere _near_ as weak as _I am_ ,’ Hopkins groaned.

' _Regardless_ , my dear chap, aside from hoping for some intervention by some benevolent spirit, there really isn't anything we can do about it. So there's really no point in worrying or letting it upset us! Wouldn't you agree, Bunny?'

'What? Oh, yes!' I agreed immediately -- though I probably would have nodded along even if Raffles had said _'We should all paint ourselves blue and take up armed robbery, wouldn't you agree, Bunny?'_

'I _do_ worry about it though,' Hopkins carried on, in a most unappealing and pathetic manner to my eyes, though both Dodo and Raffles looked upon him with expressions softened by sympathy. 'If I don't come out of this deuced school well, I shall never get accepted into Ruskin. Their offer was a conditional one, you know.''

'My dearest Kitty, only on a technicality!’ Raffles exclaimed. ‘They can't show unfair favour, can they? Ruskin are biting your hands off to take you, and rightly so. You could leave the school _tomorrow_ and set fire to the place as you went, and they should still accept you. I have far more to worry about on that front than _you_ , Kit.'

Hopkins shook his head. 'Don't be silly, darling thing; you're every bit as good artistically as I am -- and your landscapes are _much_ better than mine, and they are the real things people care about these days. _And_ you are a topping cricketer, _and_ you can translate _into_ Latin, and--!’ The dejected Hopkins shook his head. ‘All I have is that I am passably good at portraiture and know my way around a canvas. No, I shall be jolly lucky if they overlook my dire academic performance to let me in anyway; and if they do, it’ll be in spite of it.’ The boy pouted, though I believe genuinely rather than for affect, and glanced up at Raffles with shining eyes. ‘...And even if they did, you know my _father's_ views on things…'

Raffles’ brow furrowed at that, and his usually bright countenance grew sombre. For my part I couldn't help but wonder what Hopkin's father's views _were_ , and on what particular _things._

'Don't worry about him, Kit. You'll be all right. He’ll come around. Anyway, you _must_ come to Ruskin, any alternative is completely out of the question! Oxford would be simply no fun without you, old boy!' Raffles added in a brighter tone, poking Hopkins' ribs and bringing a fleeting smile to the boy’s face.

'Yes!' Dodo piped up, dropping my arm and dashing over to clasp the dolouros Hopkins by the hand. 'You'll be fine, Kitty, please don't be upset. You're the best artist in all of England, you are! My uncle Ted said he saw one of your portraits up at an exhibition in London, and everyone was talking about how you are the next, er… I can't remember who, but the next _someone_. And anyway, I shall do as much of your Latin as you like! Give it me to take home, and I'll get it back to you on the first day of Trinity term, I swear by Bret Harte!'

I couldn't understand how Hopkins commanded such excessive levels of loyalty and affection from so many people. He was the type of boy my father had always warned me against being, in hopes of keeping out of the sight-line of the more vicious class of bullies, and yet Kitty Hopkins seemed to be near universally beloved by boys and teachers alike! And to see Dodo, the boy who avoided all work he could in case it interfered with his reading about gold-miners and murderers and outlawed desperadoes and cricket, practically _begging_ to do someone else's Latin composition, and _during the Easter holidays_ no less--! It staggered belief. 

I shake my head at my younger self now, but at the time I genuinely could not see the irony in my supercilious disdain for what I considered my friend’s excessive loyalty as a fag, when I had been so eagerly assisting Raffles in his downright miscreant misdemeanours only the night before! Still, the reasons for my loyalty to Raffles were swiftly turning into something rather different than those behind Dodo’s affection for Kitty, even if I was unable to clearly recognise them at the time.

Hopkins patted Dodo absent-mindedly on the head. 'Oh, you'll do no such thing, William Rosering. You fag for me in school, not out of it. And Raffles is right, one must simply adopt a stoic attitude to such things, and get on with it without letting it affect your spirit.'

'Quite right!' Raffles said aloud, though I just about caught him adding, in a low murmur, 'Everything _will_ turn out in the end, kitten.Trust me?' 

I caught Hopkins' anxious smile and nervous gaze light up and soften in silent reply; and found myself frowning in spite of myself.

It wasn’t that I disliked Hopkins. It was nigh on _impossible_ to truly dislike Hopkins, for in spite of his manifold flaws and myriad irritating idiosyncrasies, the boy had the kindliest heart and most generous spirit of anyone in the school. And even I had to admit that what he lacked in common sense, understanding of Latin, and an awareness of when to stop talking, he more than made up for in artistic talent. And not merely in his painting, but in the entire way he viewed the world. Hopkins was one of those people who could see beauty in everything, and so brought beauty _to_ everything. When Hopkins showed you the world through his eyes, you couldn't help but feel _hope_.

And I didn't resent him his friendship with Raffles, either. Not _really._ I had always been overjoyed whenever the pair of them had, on some whim or another, condescended to let Dodo and I step into their own private little world for a while, as they had that Spring afternoon on the track by the river. I liked it when Raffles was happy, and laughing, and dazzling the world with his insuppressible spirit; and Hopkins, as his friend, made him happy. It would have been impossible for me to resent him that, and I didn’t. Not _exactly_.

It was only that some time around the start of second term I had found myself beginning to wish that _I_ could be the person Raffles was best friends with. That I could be the boy who made him so happy. I wished endlessly that I were older, so that we might have come up through school together as peers; that he would have always seen me as his equal, rather than as a little Middle Fourther and fag to be commanded and protected. More recently I had even found myself wishing, in a naive, innocent sort of a way, for more than only his friendship; but the maelstrom of emotions which acknowledging _that_ had stirred up were quite distressing enough for me to immediately put a lid on that line of thinking and shove it down far enough that I could pretend it didn’t exist at all. Seeing Raffles with his arm around Hopkins, listening to them laugh at their own private jokes and converse so fluidly in sentences half-finished, and catching hidden glimpses of glances met, eyes sparkling with genuine affection made keeping those feelings buried deep rather difficult.

No, I didn’t _dislike_ Kit Hopkins. But I really was quite jealous of him.

‘Oh, Bunny, my lad,’ said Raffles to me suddenly, breaking me out of my contemplations, ‘I’ve just remembered that there was something else I needed to do; it quite slipped my mind! Would you be a top and run on back to my study with my books and bat so I don’t have to keep carrying them whilst I dart off, quickly? I’m sure Dodo here won’t mind giving you a hand with them, will you, m’boy? -- No, not you, Kit, you stay with me. Oh, and Bunny, why don’t you tell Dodo on the way about how I’m going to give you both cricket lessons next term; that’ll give you something to look forward to, eh what?’

Dodo was in high spirits as he and I took the few books off of Raffles and set out back to school on our own, and he chatted nineteen to the dozen about all of the things he wanted Raffles to teach him, primary among them being the trick behind his slow-bowl break. My mind, however, was on other things, and had Dodo not been so full of himself and cricket, he would have found me a poor companion. When I took a last glance back at Raffles and Hopkins before turning the corner towards the school, I saw the pair of them hopping a fence and heading, arm in arm, into the quiet and picturesque woods which bordered the far side of the track, and saw neither of them again until after dinner.

Dinner that evening was a rowdy affair, the spirits of all the boys buoyed up by the extravagant end of term meal of steak and kidney pie, followed by apple pie and cream, and as much tea and biscuits as we could stomach. After dinner, most of us headed out to our private studies to spend an hour before bed finishing off whatever little schoolwork we still had outstanding, so as not to have to worry about it over the holidays. Unless, of course, you were one of the unlucky few in Mr Gray’s set who had been assigned extra work to do at home.

It was in relation to precisely this matter, I soon discovered, that an excited, hushed murmuring began fizzing up through certain select studies when we retired after dinner. From my study I heard swift feet pattering back and forth, furtive knocks on doors, and eager whispers racing along the corridors outside. Dodo and I shared a glance before sticking our heads out of the door to try and catch what was going on.

‘I say, Erderly, what’s all the fuss?’ I asked a small, intelligent boy who was loitering a few doors down. 

He glanced about himself nervously, though with a smile on his face, before sidling up to me and speaking in a stage whisper. ‘If I tell you, you must promise not to breathe a word of it to anyone?’ he said excitedly. 

Of course, I swore, as did Dodo.

‘ _Well_ ,’ Erderly said, with all the fervour of an avid gossip, ‘you won’t quite believe it-- it really seems like some sort of Easter miracle; or, at least, that’s what the other boys are saying! And it really is pretty damned miraculous, and a devilish stroke of luck for us poor beggars in the Gravedigger’s first set!’

‘What, Erderly, _what_?’

‘I don’t know how, or why, but _somehow_ every lad who’s been set work for the holiday has come back to their study to find a copy of Gray’s crib sheets slid beneath their door! What do you make of _that!’_

‘Cor!’ Dodo gasped. ‘That _is_ a bit of a miracle! Hey, I wonder whether Kitty’s gotten one? That’ll make the dear thing’s whole entire holiday!’

‘And help him getting into Ruskin,’ I murmured back.

‘Yes, and that, too! Come on, Bunny, let’s go run up and find out!’

Kitty hadn’t been left out, so we soon discovered _,_ and neither, to my greater pleasure, had Raffles. Dodo and I found the pair of them in the lower common room, along with most of the other first set boys Mr Gray was hellbent on torturing, chattering among themselves. Kitty was happily whispering along with the rest of the small throng, but Raffles was lounging back on a settee and watching proceedings with a cool, amused eye.

‘You boys make sure not to follow those sheets to the letter,’ the much-respected Captain of the Eleven advised, piping in with a moralising tone and commanding the attention of the room, ‘or you’ll be bound to be caught out. Make sure to make a few decent mistakes; and ones you’d normally make, at that. If you all turn in perfect and identical compositions, Gray’ll be on you faster than a good batter on a poor bowler.’

Raffles was met with a murmur of grateful yesses and approving nods from the other boys, Dodo among them -- for though neither he nor I had anything to gain from this mysterious answer-sheet benefactor, he was almost more elated on Kitty’s behalf than the boys who were to directly gain! And I for my part was of course glad for them, and for Raffles -- though I knew he hardly needed crib sheets to do well. Yet something was gnawing at the back of my mind, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what.

‘It really is a bit of luck, isn’t it?’ one of the boys said.

‘A bit! Rather more than a bit, Tiger!’

‘Kitty, I bet you’re bally pleased, aren’t you?’ said Dodo. 'You'll have much more fun this Easter, now; and it can't hurt your chances for Oxford!'

‘Rather!’ Kitty beamed, and I could have sworn there were nearly tears in his eyes as he glanced over at Raffles, who smiled back at his friend with such affection that it made my young heart ache. 

'But I do wonder where on earth they came from,' Kitty wondered aloud to no one in particular once he had managed to tear his eyes from Raffles and return back to the rest of the lads. 'And how on earth the things came only to those of us Gray had picked on. It's all rather a mystery!'

'Well, they do say the old West building is haunted,' Raffles said in a conspiratorial tone and wearing a devilish smirk. 'Perhaps it's benevolent spirits rather than poltergeists that wander its halls at night. I know if I were stuck haunting a school all my afterlife, I should get my kicks in sticking it to unjust schoolmasters and helping out put upon boys, wouldn't you?'

'Oh, don't say that,' Kitty shuddered. 'I should hate to _truly_ believe I were sleeping with ghosts about the place, Arthur! Even nice ones! You don’t _really_ think so?’

'It's a jolly good explanation though,' another boy said, and a further lad agreed. Soon the conversation descended into a spirited discussion on the likelihood of ghosts in the school, and whether they'd be so helpful as to steal crib sheets from Mr Gray's private study just as the boys were in most dire need of them. The consensus seemed to be leaning in the ghosts’ favour.

And, as I listened from the sidelines, Raffles looked over at me and winked.


End file.
